‘Will you write a letter for me?’
‘What sort of a letter?’
‘A crook-letter. From Charles Morgan to myself. Dear Mr Farringdon, When first I received your manuscript I was tempted to place it aside for my secretary to return to you with some polite excuse. But as happy chance would have it, before passing your work to my secretary, I flicked over the pages and my eyes lit on…‘
‘Lit on what?’ said Jane.
‘I’ll leave that to you. Only choose one of the most concise and brilliant passages when you come to write the letter. That will be difficult, I admit, since all are equally brilliant. But choose the piece you like best. Charles Morgan is to say he read that one piece, and then the whole, avidly, from start to finish. He is to say it’s a work of genius. He congratulates me on a work of genius, you realize. Then I show the letter to George.’
Jane’s life began to sprout once more, green with possibility. She recalled that she was only twenty-three, and smiled.
‘Then I show the letter to George,’ Nicholas said, ‘and I tell him he can keep his contract and —‘
George arrived. He looked busily at them both. Simultaneously, he took off his hat, looked at his watch, and said to Jane, ‘What’s the news?’
Nicholas said, ‘Ribbentrop is captured.’
George sighed.
‘No news,’ said Jane. ‘Nobody’s rung at all. No letters, nobody’s been, nobody’s rung us up. Don’t worry.’
George went into his inner office. He came out again immediately.
‘Did you get my letter?’ he said to Nicholas.
‘No,’ said Nicholas, ‘which letter?’
‘I wrote, let me see, the day before yesterday, I think. I wrote —‘
‘Oh. that letter,’ said Nicholas. ‘Yes, I believe I did receive a letter.’
George went away into his inner office.
Nicholas said to Jane, in a good, loud voice, that he was going for a stroll in the park now that the rain had stopped, and that it was lovely having nothing to do but dream beautiful dreams all the day long.
‘Yours very sincerely and admiringly, Charles Morgan,’ wrote Jane. She opened the door of her room and shouted, ‘Turn down the wireless a bit, I’ve got to do some brain-work before supper.’
On the whole, they were proud of Jane’s brain-work and her connexion with the world of books. They turned down all the wirelesses on the landing.
She read over the first draft of the letter, then very carefully began again, making an authentic-looking letter in a small but mature hand such as Charles Morgan might use.. She had no idea what Charles Morgan’s handwriting looked like; and had no reason to find out, since George would certainly not know either, and was not to be allowed to retain the document. She had an address at Holland Park which Nicholas had supplied. She wrote this at the top of her writing paper, hoping that it looked all right, and assuring herself that it did since many nice people did not attempt to have their letterheads printed in war-time and thus make unnecessary demands on the nation’s labour.
She had finished by the time the supper-bell rang. She folded the letter with meticulous neatness, having before her eyes the pencil-line features of Charles Morgan’s photograph. Jane calculated that this letter by Charles Morgan which she had just written was worth at least fifty pounds to Nicholas.
George would be in a terrible state of conflict when he saw it. Poor Tilly, George’s wife, had told her that when George was persecuted by an author, he went on and on about it for hours.
Nicholas was coming to the club after supper to spend the evening, having at last persuaded Joanna to give a special recital of
Jane joined the throng in its descent to supper. Only Selina loitered above, finishing off her evening’s disciplinary recitation:
… Elegant dress, immaculate grooming, and perfect deportment all contribute to the attainment of self- confidence.
The warden’s car stopped piercingly outside as the girls reached the lower floor. The warden drove a car as she would have driven a man had she possessed one. She strode, grey, into her office and shortly afterwards joined them in the dining-room, banging on the water-jug with her fork for silence, as she always did when about to make an announcement. She announced that an American visitor, Mrs G. Felix Dobell, would address the club on Friday evening on the subject, ‘Western Woman: her Mission’. Mrs Dobell was a leading member of the Guardians of Ethics and had recently come to join her husband who was serving with the United States Intelligence Service stationed in London.
After supper Jane was struck by a sense of her treachery to the establishment of Throvis-Mew, and to George with whom she was paid to conspire in the way of business. She was fond of old George, and began to reflect on his kindly qualities. Without the slightest intention of withdrawing from her conspiracy with Nicholas, she gazed at the letter she had written and wondered what to do about her feelings. She decided to telephone to his wife, Tilly, and have a friendly chat about something.
Tilly was delighted.. She was a tiny redhead of lively intelligence and small information, whom George kept well apart from the world of books, being experienced in wives. To Tilly, this was a great deprivation, and she loved nothing better than to keep in touch, through Jane, with the book business and to hear Jane say, ‘Well, Tilly, it’s a question of one’s raison d’etre.’ George tolerated this friendship, feeling that it established himself with Jane. He relied on Jane. She understood his ways.
Jane was usually bored by Tilly, who, although she had not exactly been a cabaret dancer, imposed on the world of books, whenever she was given the chance, a high leg-kicker’s spirit which played on Jane’s nerves, since she herself was newly awed by the gravity of literature in general. She felt Tilly was altogether too frivolous about
